


Tricks

by SpellCleaver



Series: Love Is Not Enough [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghosts, Gen, Introspection, Kylo Ren Being a Little Shit, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Throws A Tantrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 21:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12873810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCleaver/pseuds/SpellCleaver
Summary: Kylo Ren has acquired an entourage of Force ghosts. He's not thrilled about it.Or: The glowing figure in front of him is definitely a Trick of the Light.(pun fully intended)





	Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the novel Bloodline are in this fic.
> 
> Also, the last two scenes are my take on scenes from TLJ trailer. I'm pretty sure they'll never be canon.

The hangar of the ship Kylo Ren strides past is full of stormtroopers, as expected, ready to storm on Jakku. But what isn't expected is the distinctive sense of unease and distress coming from one of them - stormtroopers are typically uniform and flat, their minds blank canvases until orders are given. Totally obedient. That any of them should be broadcasting distress is. . . unusual.

That one of them should be broadcasting distress quite so _clearly_. . . Well. There shouldn't be any Force-sensitives present - Hux and Phasma had both assured him this lot had been trained practically from birth - but if there are, Snoke would surely want to know. . .

He pauses outside the hangar, mind whirring. Which one is it? Through the window, he examines them: his eyes skip from helmet to helmet until they rest on a single trooper, standing tense and rigid, their blaster in their hands like it does not quite belong there. Kylo sends a tendril of Force out towards them. . .

Only to recoil in shock. Not because of the trooper - no; they're perfectly calm - but because _something_ just caused a conspicuous ripple in the Force. Something that feels like a person who _shouldn't_ be Force-sensitive, yet they _burn_ with _strangeness_. He turns his head. It shouldn't be possible. And yet. . .

There's a ghost staring at him from across the hangar.

She's a brunette woman, appearing to be maybe a few years younger than him, with the sort of undeniable beauty Kylo hasn't seen since whenever his last saw his- since he last saw General Organa. She stands tall and regal in a dress made of some sort of gold lace; her hair is held in two buns on either side of her head with gold mesh; her eyes are dark and large. She purses her lips at him and he finds he wants to cower.

He's never met this woman before in his life. And yet. . .

And yet. . .

(Ben's known who his maternal grandmothers are for as long as he can remember. The one more commonly talked about: Breha Organa, the last Queen of Alderaan, who died when her planet and people did. Who looks little like his mother, but she smiles the same way when she means kindness: gentle, loving, a softness that belies the steel underneath.

But he also knows about his biological grandmother, who was no less special, no less remarkable. She died younger than he is now, but she was still a heroine, still a legend: Amidala, the beloved Queen and Senator of Naboo. She led her people through the Naboo Blockade. Through the Clone Wars. She died when democracy did.

She died when Anakin Skywalker did. Her children were all that was left of her.)

He knows who this is.

Padmé Amidala - Naberrie, he remembers her birth name was, Padmé Naberrie, Darth Vader's dead wife - shakes her head at him from across the hangar. He doesn't need to wonder why.

She fought for the Old Republic, after all.

He turns away, finding himself unable to meet her eye.

* * *

"How capable are your soldiers, General?"

"I won't have you question my methods-"

"They're obviously skilled in committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army."

"My men are exceptionally trained, programmed from birth-"

"Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid. Unharmed."

He watches Hux's face change infinitesimally. "Careful, Ren, that your personal interests not interfere with orders from Leader Snoke."

He doesn't dignify that thinly veiled threat with a response. "I want that map. For your sake, I suggest you get it."

Seeing Hux swallow in fear may be the most satisfying thing he's witnessed all day.

He strides away from the General, down a corridor of the Base where few people go. He needs to contact Snoke, needs to update him on the search for the map, needs to update him on the search for his- the search for Luke Skywalker.

The last Jedi. Their greatest enemy.

He's thankful that the mask hides his emotions and feelings from all Force-blind beings, because his flinch is impossible to contain when he feels that ripple in the Force again. But he can't hide the reflex from the ghost currently standing not two metres away from him, who gives him a sage smile.

An old man this time, and one Kylo can barely recognise at that. But he does recognise him - more's the pity. He's never met this man either, but he remembers his face.

(Ben remembers how his Uncle Luke, when he visited them, would sometimes still wake up from nightmares - _We all have nightmares, sweetheart_ , his mother says, lifting him into her lap, _but we all get though them_ \- and shout " _Ben_ " into the silence of the living room. Sometimes Ben Solo hears it from his room and comes crashing down the stairs in terror, only to find his uncle up and about and apologising for waking him up.

Ben remembers his Jedi training, and asking who Luke was trained by if nearly all the Jedi were extinct. _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ , Luke says fondly, _one of the greatest men I ever knew. He lived near me as a grew up - he was a hermit on Tatooine, known as that wizard, Old Ben Kenobi._ He ruffles Ben's hair and smiles at him. _He's who you're named after._

Ben remembers studying the Clone Wars in school, and seeing holos of the Hero With No Fear, Anakin Skywalker, and his master/friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, both of them young and brilliant and so vividly _alive_.

(They're dead. They're long dead everywhere except the holos and his uncle's memory.)

Ben remembers his mother ruefully recounting to Luke when she thinks he can't hear about all the stories of General Kenobi her father - Bail Organa - had told her, how when he'd given her the task to bring him to Alderaan the little girl still inside her had screamed in excitement. _General Kenobi, the hero!_ she laughs.

_It's a shame you never got to meet him alive,_ Luke says sadly. _I'm sure he would've liked you._

Ben remembers his uncle having conversations with empty rooms, turning away from musings to thin air, then talking to him again like it was all perfectly normal.

Remembers how for a long time, that _was_ his "normal".)

"Ben Solo," the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi muses. "You know, you and that general bicker worse than Anakin and I used to."

Kylo jabs a finger at him. He doesn't know why; it's not like there's anything solid to jab. "That name no longer has any meaning to me," he hisses.

The words, for whatever reason, wrench a bitter laugh out of the Jedi. His eyes are so, so sad - sadder than his moth- than General Organa's on the anniversary of Alderaan.

"If you say so," the ghost obliges. There seems to be some dark humour to the words, but he disappears before Kylo can inquire as to it.

* * *

"The droid stole a freighter." He says the words slowly, enunciating them perfectly - he wants the officer to hear just how ridiculous they sound.

"Not exactly, sir." The officer takes a deep breath. "It had help." Another breath. Kylo slowly turns to look at him. "We have no confirmation but we believe FN-2187 may have helped it escape-"

The hum of his ignited lightsaber cuts off the rest of the officer's words; the man flinches, but Kylo can't allow himself to take his anger out on him. Snoke wouldn't be pleased, and he needs to hear the rest of the report. He destroys the computer terminal instead.

Long, forceful strokes, the crash of 'saber against metal, and the disjointed buzz of shorted-out circuits. The last sound reminds Kylo of the _Falcon_ , of his godfather Chewie, of _home_ -

No.

He finishes his attack with an abruptness that startles even him. "Anything else?" His voice is tight.

He can feel the officer's terror, his hesitation, but he lets it slide. The Force is telling him this is important, that he _needs to hear this_ -

"The two were accompanied by a girl."

He whirls back round to face him, his hand flying out and _yanking_ before he even thinks. The officer's grunt means nothing to him as he grips his neck, keeping him dangling off the ground, and grinds out, _"What girl."_

The officer's babblings tell him nothing - scavenger, reported to have been on Jakku for well over a decade, brown hair in three buns, carries a staff, nicknamed "Rey" - that he hasn't already guessed. Because if it's _her_. . .

He dismisses the officer. He doesn't want to hear his pitiful pleas.

He gives a long look to the destroyed computer terminal, then the crimson blades of his lightsaber shoot out again and he's slashing, hacking, _obliterating_ , revelling in this beautiful destruction-

It's a wonder that over all the noise he still hears the wizened old voice croak, "Afraid, you were, Ben Solo. Afraid and alone."

He stumbles back, losing his grip on his lightsaber. It clatters to the floor and automatically turns itself off.

He feels that ripple in the Force again but he can't turn around, can't face it, can't withstand another withering look from another long-dead being, can't fail to recognise the famously mangled grammar of the most well known Jedi Grandmaster in _history_ -

"Much fear there was in you. The truth - you were not ready for the truth. Fear turned to anger. Anger turned to hate. And now hate," there's a pause, as if the reportedly emotionless Grandmaster needs a moment to compose himself, "leads to _suffering_."

Perhaps it's a part of the punishment, knowing exactly who his undead tormentors are. Because Kylo certainly knows who this is - knows it without even turning around.

(Ben remembers walking in on his uncle telling some young Jedi initiates - he was always best with the younglings - about the "Yoda Carry", an ordinary piggyback, because apparently Grandmaster Yoda had taught Luke much of what he did from his perch on the then-adolescent's back.

Ben remembers the censorship of the old Jedi articles - especially those from the Clone Wars - slowly being lifted throughout his lifetime, until holos of Yoda and Mace Windu and Kit Fisto were easy to access on the holonet. Remembers the jokes that abounded after it slipped out that Yoda could never get the order of his sentences right.

Ben remembers the one teaching his uncle always took care to pass on: _Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering._

But Ben also remembers the more personal stories Luke told him, about Yoda being a great but hard master, being harsh and unyielding and unsympathetic to his desire to save his friends. And that's the impression that's always stayed with him.)

Kylo opens his eyes again and turns to glare at the short, gnarled green figure of a Force ghost. "Out!" he shouts. "Get out!" He batters the apparition with the Dark Side for good measure.

Like a candle, the ghost is snuffed out.

* * *

He bows his head in something akin to prayer. "Forgive me," he whispers. "I feel it again."

There's no answer - of course there's no answer; he's talking to a mask.

But he _does_ feel it, feel it tugging at his soul, sees flickers of a man's face before his eyes: strong jaw line, blue eyes (like Luke's. . .), blond hair, a scar down his face. Hear whispered words running through his mind like a blessing - like a chant.

_Don't do this._

_Come home._

_You are not an evil man._

And, the strangest one of all, one he debated and puzzled and mourned over until wise Snoke reminded him they're just tricks of the light: _Don't emulate the mistakes I did._

"The call to the Light," he chokes out, and raises his head. _Don't. Please._ "The Supreme Leader senses it," he admits further, then begs, "Show me again - the power of the darkness." It was so beautiful, when he first saw it - there had really been no choice involved. "And I will let nothing stand in our way."

_Ben. . ._

"Show me," he hesitated, "grandfather."

(Ben remembers finding out about his dark heritage, remembers the dissolution of the myth that was Anakin Skywalker's goodness. He remembers walking into a room at the Academy one day, only to find Luke not present when he'd never taken a day off before. He remembers one of the younglings finally plucking up the courage to approach him - a small girl, with big brown eyes, so similar to someone Ben couldn't think of - and hand him a datapad with the holo-clip on it.

He remembers watching that Senator from Riosa - Casterfo, his name was - stand up on stage, face pale and haunted, and declare that Ben's beloved but distant mother was the daughter of Darth Vader.

He remembers watching her face as she decided to confirm it.

Ben remembers watching the holocall she later sent him, her eyes puffy and her voice breaking, as she explained her secret and how _it was never the right time to tell you_. He remembers going to Luke to have it confirmed, and seeing his uncle's hopeless eyes. A harbinger of doom. He remembers watching that call again and again and again, his mother's face in that moment clearer to him now than her face at any other point in his childhood.

Ben remembers how many of his friends and students were extracted from the Academy. After all, who wants their offspring to be trained by a child of a Sith Lord, even if he's the last Jedi?

Ben remembers how the world tried to shun him after that. It hated him for his grandfather - it hated him for his bloodline.

_So he used that to make him stronger._

And now he hates them right back.

Ben remembers the words that shattered everything: _Your father has become Darth Vader_.)

"And I will finish what you started," he promises.

_I left it unfinished for a reason_ , the voice cries. He ignores it, as always.

He rises from his perch to stride out of the door, his grandfather's mask left in its twisted, defiled glory behind him.

_Come back._

He doesn't.

_Your mother has suffered enough. . . don't make her suffer more._

_Come back, Ben._

_Come back. . ._

* * *

It's days after the destruction of Starkiller Base when Kylo is finally able to breathe again - to process all that has happened.

The wound the girl gave him throbs on his face - at one point, he catches himself thinking about how very similar it is to his grandfather's, to the scar Anakin Skywalker bore in the last few years of his life.

Upon arriving on Snoke's Star Destroyer, he is first sent to Snoke himself for. . . _training._ Or perhaps a better name is _discipline_.

After hours of suffering through that, he returns to the near-Spartan rooms that have been assigned to him for the duration of his stay here. None of his personal belongings that he still deigned to keep made it off Starkiller Base, and so this is all he has: a lightsaber, a mask, and a legacy more burden than blessing.

His quarters are black and white. He feels like it's mocking him; nothing is black and white. Least of all this situation he finds himself in.

He's staggering, unstable on his feet, so he makes a beeline for the bedroom. He lifts his mask from his face with a sigh of relief.

Only when he opens the door does he acknowledge that ripple in the Force again.

He dreads looking up. He does it anyway.

Han Solo lounges on his son's bed, looking for all the world like he's as familiar and comfortable here as he is - _was_ \- on the _Millennium Falcon_. With Chewie and Luke and Leia. Only the transparency and faint blue glow give away that he is, in fact, dead.

(Ben remembers how his father never quite knew what the Force did and what it didn't. _I mean, I used to think the Force was a whole load of mumbo-jumbo,_ he would admit, _but Luke kinda forced me into believing in it. It was that or spend hours looking for the hidden strings attached to his wrists that let him yank his lightsaber out of the snow like it wasn't two metres out of reach._ He would ruffle Ben's hair then, and finish wistfully, _Eventually, everyone becomes a believer_.)

His father notices him then, and gives him a pale imitation of his old smirk. "Hey, Ben."

Kylo does _not_ scream as he rushes out of the room.

No.

He finds himself standing in the monochrome atrium again, painfully aware of the Force ghost in his bedroom. White lights blink against a black background and he - can't - think-

His mask is still lying innocuously in his hand.

He shatters it against the wall.

Again - again - again.

Until it's nothing but broken pieces of everything he'd once hoped to be.

* * *

The Resistance's flagship is right in front of his TIE fighter, and he has a perfect shot of the command centre. He could wipe out their enemies' mobile base - and most of their leadership - in a single shot. Secure a major win for the First Order.

And yet. . .

And yet. . .

He can feel his mother down there. Not General Organa, not the last Princess of Alderaan: his _mother_. She is worried and she is anxious and she is unspeakably, incredibly sad. But he knows she can feel him too.

And she is not afraid.

(Ben remembers. . .)

Ben doesn't need to remember. Because Ben never truly forgot.

His finger brushes the trigger. Does he fire? Does he cross this invisible line, and watch as everything goes to the nine Corellian hells?

There is a weight on his shoulder - like all the Force ghosts and all his loved ones and all the galaxy's living and the galaxy's dead are watching him, weighing him, awaiting his decision.

Does he shoot his mother?

His mother, whose hairstyles became increasingly subdued as she grew older? His mother, who never stopped loving democracy but watched as her faith in the system dwindled bit by bit? His mother, who never missed a holocall, who always tried to keep in touch with him even when he and Luke were training in an undisclosed location on the other side of the galaxy from her?

(He has no doubt that if he does this. . . If he does this, his mother will become just another ghost in his entourage of the regretted dead. And she'll be the most influential of them all.)

Does he do this?

And, more importantly, _can_ he?

That's a question far more easily answered.

He slides his thumb off the trigger.


End file.
